About Karine Laval

Often likened to William Eggleston and Henri Cartier-Bresson for her use of color to express mood and her pursuit of spontaneity, respectively, Karine Laval combines environmental and architectural photography (in locales such as Cuba, Argentina, France and Norway) with portraiture. Her choice of subjects often gravitates towards water, as in her ongoing photographic series of people in and around swimming pools. "I find water to be appeasing, healing and liberating," Laval says. "I also see water as a vehicle for transformation and self-reflection." She uses unusual camera angles and painterly color effects to bridge the gap between the surreal and the familiar experiences of leisure and exotic travel; she achieves her ethereal visual effects by way of cross-processing techniques—developing her negatives in chemicals intended for different types of film. Laval’s editorial work has been published in Elle, The New Yorker, and the New York Times Magazine. Recently, Laval has worked in mixed media and video.